Monthly Archives: August 2016

While a college degree is an excellent tool to help you get the job of your dreams, showcasing your expertise in the “hard” skills, like mathematics, writing, and science, it’s not all you need. Employers also want employees who are responsible, creative, good at communicating, and work well on a team. These abilities, referred to as soft skills, can be what separates the good employees from great ones, making them highly desirable to employers and, in turn, extremely important for job seekers.

In fact, CareerBuilder reports that 77% of employers rank soft skills as just as important in hiring as hard skills and 16% say they are actually more important. Essentially, it’s not just your proficiency in your subject area that will matter—you’ll need the right attitude and interpersonal aptitudes, too.

Luckily, your college courses, even those online, provide plenty of opportunities for you to build these skills before graduation. Here, you’ll learn about some of the most in-demand soft skills and find tips and ideas on how you can turn your online education into a soft skills training ground.

While flashcards and notes can be really great study tools, they’re actually not the most important resource in your academic toolbelt when it comes to getting the maximum return on investment for your study time. Research shows that in many cases, sleep, or lack thereof, can have a bigger impact on your academic success than extra hours spent studying.

Don’t get too excited though– you can’t just replace your study sessions with sleep and expect to earn straight A’s—you still have to study. But you may not realize just how much being well rested matters when it comes time to recall the information you covered while studying or listening to a lecture. Read on to learn why sleep is such an important part of learning new information and why you shouldn’t skimp on it if you want to do well in your courses.